Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 14: The Crime Branch Jammu has unearthed major cyber crime fraud, which was being run by the fraudsters from Non Capital Region (NCR) of New Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida, in Jammu region by arresting seven persons, all of whom belonged to different North Indian States and have identified five more accused including two girls from New Delhi, who were still at large.
The investigating agency has so far recovered Rs 15 lakh from the accused and was in the process of effecting more recoveries soon following sustained questioning of the accused, who were cheating the innocent people by posing themselves as agents of prominent banks and insurance companies etc.
SSP Crime Branch Jammu Mubassir Latifi told the Excelsior that the Crime Branch acted after getting series of complaints from the people that they had been duped by the telephone callers, who claimed themselves to be the representatives of prominent banks, insurance companies etc and asked the people to deposit amount in their accounts by promising them hefty returns.
“The fraudsters had also been taking amount from the people by promising to install mobile towers, ATMs etc in their houses and shops at the rate of Rs 50,000 or even Rs 1 lakh per month,’’ Latifi said, adding a number of people had been cheated by the accused by making the fraud calls from different offices in Noida, Gurgaon and New Delhi. The accused had frequently been changing their offices and posing themselves as self-styled Directors and representatives of various Directors and companies.
Latifi said while seven accused have been arrested, five others including two girls—Kanchan and Neha Kant of New Delhi have also been identified and were absconding. Number of the accused could go up during questioning of the arrested persons, he added.
Cyber Cell Incharge of the Crime Branch Inspector Parvez Sajjad and his team played major role in working out the case on the directions of IGP Crime Branch Muneer Khan.
“We received a complaint from one Vijay Kumar Gupta of Kathua who informed that he was duped of Rs 37 lakh by few people who pretended to be from an insurance company where he had made some investment earlier,” Latifi said.
He added that the accused made several telephone calls to the victim and informed him that his policy had lapsed and he needed to deposit some money to revive it.
“He paid the money and by the time he realised that he was duped of his hard earned money, Gupta had already deposited more than Rs 37 lakh in different accounts of the accused, who introduced themselves to be employees of the insurance company,” the SSP Crime Branch said.
Latifi said that a team of Crime branch investigated the case and was sent to Delhi where the case was cracked and the accused arrested.
“The Crime Branch has also been successful in recovering an amount of Rs 15 Lakh and would recover more amount in the coming days,” he said.
“We appeal to the people not to fall prey to such phone calls and don’t divulge their credit or debit card and bank account details on telephone,” he added.
“For the last two-three years, a number of complaints have been received in Crime Branch, Jammu where the unknown callers had after alluring the complainants taken away their hard earned money through online transactions in different bank accounts, which on verifications turned out to be opened on fake names and addresses,’’ Latifi said.
Seven accused arrested by the Crime Branch so far have been identified as Chander Shekhar Kandpal alias Sharad Kumar son of Khemanand R/o Masjid Wali Gali, Pink City, Jaipur, Rajasthan, Shiv Kumar alias Raj Kumar Sharma S/o Jagpal Singh R/o village Gejhe Noida, Sector-93 Goutambudh Nagar UP, Anil Kumar S/o Bhim Ram R/o Julaghat, Majalkand, Uttarakhand, presently putting up at Dilshada Colony, New Delhi, Arun Dass alias Deepak Singal alias Goel S/o Sunil Dass R/o JJ Colony Madanpur Khadar, New Delhi, Rajeev Tanwar S/o Mahan Lal Tanwar R/o Haritvihar Burari, New Delhi, Sachin Bhardwaj alias Krishanan S/o Roshan Lal Bhardwaj R/o Ambedkar Vihar, Johripur, New Delhi and Pushkar Chaudhary alias Baskar S/o Dharmanand Chaudhary R/o Panchsheel Enclave, village Basantpur, Haryana.
On preliminary questioning of the arrested persons, the Crime Branch found that the fraudsters belonged to New Delhi, Noida, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan but were working in close coordination with each other.
The three kingpins including Anil Kumar, Pushkar Chaudhary and Rajeev Tanwar had opened offices at different locations and had hired different persons as callers to hook up innocent persons/depositors in various parts of the country.
These callers used to collect data of various depositors from different banks/insurance companies from their associates and call each and every depositor/subscriber individually by impersonating as officials of Banks/RBI/Insurance companies by collecting the details of the official functionaries from the authorized websites of these banks/insurance companies, in order to provide assurance to the innocent persons and ask for money on different pretexts which was to be deposited in different bank accounts opened in different nationalized as well as private banks on fake names and addresses but operated actually by some of the accused persons and in the process had collected lacs of rupees by duping so many innocent persons throughout the country including the State of J&K.
Some of the account heads/names and numbers which have surfaced are Money Back Club A/c No. 50200008183295 HDFC Bank, New Delhi, Money Back Tour and Travels A/c No. 914020033747174 UTI, Money Back Tour and Travels A/c No. 50200009292694 HDFC Bank, Sharad Kumar Sharma A/c No. 3441851629 CBIN Mayur Vihar Delhi, Sharad Kumar Sharma A/c No. 501000094649410 HDFC Mayur Vihar Delhi, Sharad Kumar Sharma A/c No. 053200101055352 Corporation Bank, Preet Vihar, Delhi, We Care A/c No. 50261229316 Allahabad Bank, We Care A/c No. 083105001047 ICICI Bank, Aegon A/c No. 3427908450 Central Bank of India, Noida, Aegon A/c No. 64168784577 State Bank of Mysore, Noida, Aegon A/c No. 914020057293000 UTI Mayur Vihar, Delhi, A&K Global Solutions A/c No. 50200003707514 HDFC Bank, Noida, Raj Kumar Sharma A/c No.50200008047563 HDFC and Raj Kumar Sharma A/c No.5020000804758 HDFC, Mayur Vihar.
The SSP Crime Branch appealed to the public at large that “come what may” all such unsolicited calls be avoided abinito and under no circumstances the personal details, account numbers, PIN Codes, ATM Card numbers, Credit card Numbers, CVV codes, Internet Banking passwords etc. be shared with anybody including the so called bank/RBI/SBI/Insurance Company officials, who make calls, as such a step shall ensure safety of their hard earned money and keep them away from the unpleasant hardships.
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